Chemikalien empire. Dietricht’s family had contributed heavily to Hitler’s
National Socialist coffers; when the father and uncle had died, Johann
Dietricht was allowed to continue the management – more in name than in
fact. ‘Nothing occurs at Dietricht of which I am unaware. We’ve had nothing
to do with Peenemiinde!’
Johann Dietricht smiled, his fat lips curling, his blinking eyes betraying
an excess of alcohol, his partially plucked eyebrows his sexual proclivity
– excess, again. Zangen couldn’t stand Dietricht; the man – although no man
– was a disgrace, his life-style an insult to German industry. Again, felt
Zangen, there was no point in procrastinating. The information would come
as no surprise to von Schnitzler and Krepps.
‘There are many aspects of the Dietricht Chemikalien of which you know
nothing. Your own laboratories have worked consistently with Peenemande in
the field of chemical detonation.’
Dietricht blanched; Krepps interrupted.
‘What is your purpose, Herr Reich official? You call us here only to insult
us? You tell us, directors, that we are not the masters of our own
companies? I don’t know Herr Dietricht so well, but I can assure you that
von Schnitzler and myself are not puppets.’
Von Schnitzler had been watching Zangen closely, observing the Reich
official’s use of his handkerchief. Zangen kept blotting his chin
nervously. ‘I presume you have specific information -such as you’ve just
delivered to Herr Dietricht – that will con-
72
firm your statements.’
‘I have.’
‘Then you’re saying that isolated operations – within our own factories –
were withheld from us.’
‘I am.’
‘Then how can we be held responsible? These are insane accusations.’
‘They are made for practical reasons.’
‘Now you’re talking in circles!’ shouted Dietricht, barely recovered from
Zangen’s insult.
“I must agree,’ said Krepps, as if agreement with the obvious homosexual
was distasteful, yet mandatory.
‘Come, gentlemen. Must I draw pictures? These are your companies. Farben
has supplied eighty-three per cent of all chemicals for the rockets;
Schreibwaren has processed every blueprint; Dietricht, the majority of
detonating compounds for the casing explosives. We’re in a crisis. If we
don’t overcome that crisis, no protestations of ignorance will serve you.
I might go so far as to say,that there are those in the ministry and
elsewhere who will deny that anything was withheld. You simply buried your
collective heads. I’m not even sure myself that such a judgment is in
error.’
‘Lies!’ screamed Dietricht.
‘Absurd!’ added Krepps.
‘But obscenely practical,’ concluded von Schnitzler slowly, staring at
Zangen. ‘So this is what you’re telling us, isn’t it? What Altmifller tells
us. We either employ our resources to find a solution – to come to the aid
of our industrial Schwachling – or we face equilateral disposition in the
eyes of the ministry.’
‘And in the eyes of the Fiffirer; the judgment of the Reich itself.’
‘But how?’ asked the frightened Johann Dietricht.
Zangen remembered AltmOller’s words precisely. ‘Your companies have long
histories that go back many years. Corporate and individual. From the
Baltic to the Mediterranean, from New York to Rio de Janeiro, from Saudi
Arabia to Johannesburg.’
‘And from Shanghai down through Malaysia to the ports in Australia and the
Tasman Sea,’ said von Schnitzler quietly.
‘They don’t concern us.’
‘I thought not.’
‘Are you suggesting, Herr Reich official, that the solution for
73
Peenemlinde lies in our past associations?’ Von Schnitzler leaned forward in
his chair, his hands and eyes on the table.
‘It’s a crisis. No avenues can be overlooked. Communications can be
expedited.’
‘No doubt. What makes you think they’d be exchanged?’ continued the head of
1. G. Farben.
‘Profits,’ replied Zangen.
‘Difficult to spend facing a firing squad.’ Von Schnitzler shifted his
large bulk and looked up at the window, his expression pensive.
‘You assume the commission of specific transactions. I refer more to acts
of omission.’
‘Clarify that, please.’ Krepps’s eyes remained on the tabletop.,
‘There are perhaps twenty-five acceptable sources for the bortz and
carbonado diamonds – acceptable in the sense that sufficient quantities can
be obtained in a single purchase. Africa and South America; one or two
locations in Central America. These mines are run by companies under fiat
security conditions: British, American, Free French, Belgian … you know
them. Shipments are controlled, destinations cleared…. We are suggesting
that shipments can be sidetracked, destinations altered in neutral
territories. By the expedient of omitting normal security precautions. Acts
of incompetence, if you will; human error, not betrayal.’
‘Extraordinarily profitable rrdstakes,’ summed up von Schnitzler.
‘Precisely,’ said Wilhelm Zangen.
‘Where do you find such men?’ asked Johann Dietricht in his high-pitched
voice.
‘Everywhere,’ replied Heinrich Krepps.
Zangen blotted his chin with his handkerchief.
74
6
NOVEMBER 29, 1943
BASQUE COUNTRY, SPAIN
Spaulding raced across the foot of the hill until he saw the converging
limbs of the two trees. They were the mark. He turned right and started up
the steep incline, counting off an approximate 125 yards; the second mark.
He turned left and walked slowly around to the west slope, his -body low,
his eyes darting constantly in all directions; he gripped his pistol firmly.
On the west slope he looked, for a single rock – one among so many on the
rock-strewn Galician hill – that had been chipped on its downward side.
Chipped carefully with three indentations. It was the third and final mark.
He found it, spotting first the bent reeds of the stiff hill grass. He
knelt down and looked at his watch: two forty-five.
He was fifteen minutes early, as he had planned to be. In fifteen minutes
he would walk down the west slope, directly in front of the chipped rock.
There he would find a pile of branches. Underneath the branches would be a
short-walled cave; in that cave – if all went as planned – would be three
men. One was a member of an infiltration team. The other two were
Wissenschaftkr – German scientists who had been attached to the Kindorf
laboratories in the Ruhr Valley. Their defections – escape – had been an
objective of long planning.
The obstacles were always the same.
Gestapo.
The Gestapo had broken an underground agent and was on to
75
the Wissenschaftler. But, typical of the SS elite, it kept its knowledge to
itself, looking for bigger game than two disaffected laboratory men. Gestapo
Agenten had given the scientists wide latitude; surveillance dismissed,
laboratory patrols relaxed to the point of inefficiency, routine
interrogation disregarded.
Contradictions.
The Gestapo was neither inefficient nor careless. The SS was setting a
trap.
Spaulding’s instructions to the, underground had been terse, simple: let
the trap be sprung. With no quarry in its net.
Word was leaked that the scientists, granted a weekend leave to Stuttgart,
were in reality heading due north through underground routing to
Bremerhaven. There contact was being made with a high-ranking defecting
German naval officer who had commandeered a small craft and would make a
dramatic run to the Allies. It was common knowledge that the German navy
was rife with unrest. It was a recruiting ground for the anti-Hitler
factions springing up throughout the Reich.
The word would give everyone something to think about, reasoned Spaulding.
And the Gestapo would be following two men it assumed were the
Wissenschaftler from Kindorf, when actually they were two middle-aged
Wehrmacht security patrols sent on a false surveillance.
Games and countergames.
So much, so alien. The expanded interests of the man in Lisbon.
This afternoon was a concession. Demanded by the German underground. He was
to make the final contact alone. The underground claimed the man in Lisbon
had created too many complications; there was too much room for error and
counterinfiltration. There wasn’t, thought David, but if a solo run would
calm the nervous stomachs of the anti-Reichists, it was little enough to
grant them.
He had his own Valdero team a half mile away in the upper hills. Two shots
and they would come to his help on the fastest horses Castilian money could
buy.
It was time. He could start toward the cave for the final contact.
He slid down the hard surface, his heels digging into the earth and rocks
of the steep incline until he was above the pile of branches and limbs that
signified the hideout’s opening. He picked up a handful of loose dirt and
threw it down into the broken foliage.
76
The response was as instructed: a momentary thrashing of a stick against
the piled branches. The fluttering of bird’s wings, driven from the bush.
Spaulding quickly sidestepped his way to the base of the enclosure and
stood by the camouflage.
‘Alles in Ordnung. Kommen Me,’ he said quietly but firmly. ‘There isn’t
much traveling time left.’
‘Halt!’was the unexpected shout from the cave.
David spun around, pressed his back into the hill and raised his Colt. The
voice from inside spoke again. In English.
‘Are you … Lisbon?’
‘For God’s sake, yes I Don’t do that I You’ll get. your head shot off!’